Last week, under the guise of public service (“to help keep your next text free from any unwanted raunchiness”), the Daily Mail revealed the “X-rated double meanings” of popular, “seemingly innocuous” emojis such as the clinking beer glasses, the circus tent and the smiley face with crosses for eyes.

“Few probably realise this innocuous mailbox emoji can be used to mean ‘sex’,” they said. I’d include among that minority any recipients of it as well.

The same goes for this reporter’s “translations” on Q13 Fox News in Seattle, Washington:

Sex can be found hiding behind just about anything, particularly by the Daily Mail, but I’d suggest that if that’s what you’re trying to communicate there are better ways – even better emoji.

Of the many hundreds of emoji available, a handful havetaken on new meanings that are now widely accepted: you say “eggplant”, many read “penis”; you say “stone fruit”, pretty much everyone pictures a close-crop of Kim Kardashian.

In those cases, the colloquial meaning derives from the physical resemblance: in others, it’s the vibe of the thing. The “100 points symbol”, for example, is a perfect score as denoted on exam papers in Japan; in colloquial usage in chat, it’s used to expressed “keeping it real”, success or general support.

Likewise, the “new moon with face” – “sometimes perceived to be creepy”, as its Emojipedia entry notes – can be applied to show social awkwardness. “Fire” usually means “someone or something being hot or ... exemplary (lit, slang)”.

The majority of emoji can be interpreted in one of two ways: at face value (“panda”, “gun”, “wrapped gift”), or to mean literally anything else. Meaning is in the iMessage of the beholder: emoji are a versatile tool for digital communication, but by no means a consistent one, and this can make them fraught.

Jess Martin (@OpenEyedSneeze)

"Well, yes. It was a butt AND political wordplay. It was a confusing time."- Explaining the peach emoji to our grandkids

Remember, it wasn’t long ago that technophobia was stoked by acronyms, with newspapers – it was always newspapers – printing lists of those you “may not know” to conjure your worst fears about what your child could be up to online. Pretty much none of them were in common usage.

In 2014 the FBI was subjected to some snark for its 83-page glossary of nearly 3,000 items of alleged internet slang. Many had been used only a handful of times in the history of Twitter, including DITYID and BTDTGTTSAWIO.

And if those aren’t springing to mind – IITYWIMWYBMAD?

(“If I tell you what it means will you buy me a drink?”: “Did I tell you I’m depressed?”; “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and wore it out”. Now buy me that drink.)

The trick is confidence – emoji are open to interpretation, so make them your own. You could ease into it with the 100-level translation, swapping the word “coffee” for the “hot beverage” emoji – or you can type the word out and chuck a sprinkling of surfers or balloons to reflect your bottomless enthusiasm for the stuff.

Really, there’s no wrong way – though despite their widespread use, any beyond the thumbs-up and perhaps the smiley face are not really work-appropriate, even if you’re using “mailbox” to literally mean “mailbox”. (And iPhone users: I’d say stick to the generic yellow skin tone, or the one most closely resembling your own.)

Hardcoresandals (@LateandDirty)

What does it mean when your boss uses this emoji to tell you your probationary review is ready?😊

Emoji appear differently across platforms, with Google rendering Apple’s nuanced designs into potatoes with crude faces drawn on them. It’s no wonder that, according to a Match.com study, iPhone owners are 21 times more likely to negative judge a date who owns an Android.

“Grinning face with smiling eyes” is, according to researchers, the most commonly misinterpreted, with the tense set of the jaw that defines the emoji for iPhone users lost in translation on other networks.

“Of course, you could just avoid using emoji at all,” concluded those researchers, and by this point that might be your conclusion too. But it’s been called “the world’s fastest-growing language”, used by reportedly 92% of the online population. CYRATBLB? (“Can you really afford to be left behind?”, FBI. Obviously.)